Ontario government and police are being sued for $7 million
By THE CANADIAN PRESS - printed in London Free Press
Dec. 3, 2009
HAMILTON -- A Caledonia woman was angry and fierce in her determination not to let the truck full of men - their faces covered with bandannas and balaclavas -- see that she was afraid.
The vehicle pulled up outside Dana Chatwell's home on Oct. 18, 2006, about five months after aboriginal protesters had taken down nearby barricades.
Chatwell said she and a female friend were alone, as her husband, Dave Brown, and son, Dax Chatwell, were away that night.
Chatwell, 46, and her family have filed a $7 million lawsuit against the provincial police and Ontario government, claiming they lived under siege and were abandoned to a state of lawlessness after aboriginal protesters occupied a neighbouring housing development in February 2006.
Chatwell testified yesterday she tossed her phone to her friend and told her to call police.
Dressed only in her pajamas, she picked up a baseball bat and stormed outside. "Get off my property!" she roared at the men.
A second truck arrived, which also carried six men in army fatigues with their faces covered.
"I said to my girlfriend, 'Did you call the police? Did you call the police?'"
Police never did show up that night, said Chatwell, although they called back a couple of hours later to see if the women were OK. Chatwell said she had to swallow her fear and run the trespassers off her property herself.
"I think I called them a bunch of cowards. I called them every name in the book. But I know I called them cowards, with their masks over their faces," she told Superior Court Justice Thomas Bielby.
Chatwell testified there were many nights she was too afraid to go to bed because of the noise from the occupied property, including whooping, shouting, drumming, chanting, and trucks and ATVs being driven wildly in all directions.
The protesters would shine headlights and spotlights on her house, lighting it up like a circus tent.
In August 2006, Chatwell said they got a letter from Pilot Insurance Co. of Toronto, advising them of a number of "changes" and "enhancements" to their policy. In particular, it would "no longer insure damage caused by fire resulting from a terrorist act."
On Dec. 17, 2006, they returned home to find their dog limping and evidently injured and every room in their house ransacked.
Computers and electronics were trashed, upholstered furniture ripped, china smashed and intruders had sliced their mattresses and urinated on their bedding, she said.
Police investigated the family, she said, accusing them of vandalizing their own home, in order to cast suspicion on the native occupiers next door.
The trial continues.